From your linked article:
> For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app
Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. In order to download map tiles around you, show nearby stuff, traffic, etc they need to know where you are. So yes, that means they get your location.
But that has nothing to do with the sort of periodic background location reporting used in Location History that people are concerned about. Disabling Location History and not using Maps or other Google location based apps or APIs means they won't get your location.
Also note that there's no mention of play store access, phone calls or any other sorts of usages which seem like they shouldn't ask for location in that article.
They make a bit of a big deal about searching for "chocolate chip cookies" not requiring localized results, but from a technical perspective I think it's obvious that they just send it with the request regardless, they don't know . Trivial to disable if you don't want that though. In fact, both this an the Maps example will happen even on iOS devices as the article points out.
When I said I found those claims exaggerated last time I looked into it, this is exactly what I meant. They must get a lot of clicks by making this stuff out to be more nefarious.